I was thinking the same. At first a thought of Dolf Norbury had crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. Ukozi was behind this, somewhere. The proximity to the waterhole associated him in my mind with the outrage. His beastly performance with the snake!--was he training it to seize human beings, in the furtherance of some devilish form of native superstition? Oh, good Heavens no! That wouldn't bear thinking about. But Aida--my love--had disappeared--had disappeared even as Hensley had. He had never been found; the mystery of his disappearance had never been solved. And she! Had she been hideously and secretly done to death? Oh God! I shall go mad! When we arrived, the Major and Falkner had just returned, and their horses were simply reeking. They had scoured the whole farm, but utterly without result. As for Mrs Sewin and Edith their grief was pitiable--would have been only it was nothing by the side of mine. "How was the dog killed?" was my first question, ignoring all greeting. I had resolved to waste no time in grief. I had now pulled myself together, and was going to do all that man was capable of to find my loved one again. "That's the strange part of it," said Falkner gruffly. "There's no wound of any kind about the beast, and he hasn't even been hit on the head, for his skull is quite smooth and unbroken. But, there he is--as dead as the traditional herring." "You didn't move him, did you?" "No. He's there still." "Well let's go there. I may light on a clue." "You'd better not come, uncle," said Falkner. "You're played out, for one thing, and there ought to be one man on the place with all this devilish mystery going about." "Played out be damned, sir," retorted the Major fiercely. "I'd tire you any day. I'm going." The dead dog was lying right in the path, just beyond where we had found the lost coin on that memorable day. The first thing I looked for were traces of a struggle, but if there had been any they were now completely obliterated by hoof marks and footmarks made by Falkner and the Major when they first made the discovery. "The dog died before sundown," I said, after a momentary examination. "How do you know that?" asked Falkner. "Because the ground underneath him is perfectly dry. If he had been killed or died later it wouldn't have been. It would have been damp with dew. Look--Ah!" The last exclamation was evoked by a curious circumstance as I moved the body of the dead animal. A strange odour greeted my nostrils. It was as the odour of death, and yet not altogether, and--it was the same that poisoned the air on the occasion of my horse refusing to go forward on that night at Kendrew's, and again here, almost on this very spot three nights ago when we had come away from witnessing Ukozi's uncanny performance at the pool. Some dark villainy underlay this, and that the witch doctor was connected with it was borne in upon my mind without a doubt.